Monsters
by ohnosteve
Summary: The monsters of our past do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. AU B/V oneshot.


This is a Beauty & The Beast inspired one-shot. Before you read it a little warning: this was written late night in a single stream of consciousness and is completely unedited or proofread. I have not read it through myself and hope it's vaguely intelligible, at least.

* * *

She had asked him many times about the exact nature of the 'curse' laying over this place, and the reason for its being cast, and each time he had turned his face (but never his whole body) in her direction and given her a silent look so unsettling she had to turn back to her book, or her experiment, or watching the unending drizzle of rain out the window.

In the village where Bulma had grown up, the legend was that a rival kingdom had sent a sinister witch to place a curse upon the royal family, hundreds of years ago, which no sorcerer had yet been able to break. The legends were wrong on at least some counts. The stories Bulma had heard at her mother's knee claimed that the royals could not leave their palace as they had been trapped in the forms of animals – in some stories bears, in some monkeys and in some they were even cursed to be gargoyles. The prince, however, was the only one she had seen in her time here (nearly a year, now) and he had the look of an ordinary man, if one with a heavier than usual burden upon his soul.

And that was another thing. The stories all said that the family could leave, but didn't due to their mutated forms, and were cursed to live forever in their twisted shells, and that servants who entered would be trapped, but live only their natural lifespans. It was almost certainly true that the prince had become immortal, having maintained the same youthful appearance evident in the portraits painted half a century hence, but the king and queen were nowhere to be seen. She had asked if they were dead once. He had said "they are not living" in a voice that told her further questions would bring unwelcome answers.

She looked over at him now from beneath fair blue lashes and he lifted his head as though he could feel her eyes on him, though he was facing the fireplace and she was by the window.

"Are you working, girl?"

At first she had thought half a century trapped in these halls had made him bitter, but the longer she spent here the more clearly it dawned upon her that the old portraits replicated that arrogant tilt of the head, that cruel twist of the mouth and stubborn set of the jaw. He had been this way always, she was growing to realise, and it didn't do to make excuses for him.

She bowed her head over her work but his footsteps were crossing the floor and then he was leaning over her with a hand on the desk, invading her personal space.

"Care to update me on your progress?"

"Oh," she replied faintly, "I don't expect you would understand."

It was a weak excuse and she felt keenly that he knew she was floundering. Tradition dictated that the ever-shrinking kingdom send its finest magician once every fifty years, to attempt to break the curse. None had ever emerged triumphant, each one swallowed up by the curse that prevented anyone from leaving. This year they had sent Bulma; more scientist or alchemist than magician, in a futile attempt to try something new. She had not honestly been sure, before arriving, that there even was an immortal royal family within the palace. There were no clues for her as to where she might begin, so she tinkered about with her personal projects and hoped the prince didn't grow too agitated.

"You are not even trying, are you, girl?"

Bulma bit her lip and stared resolutely at the desk.

He snorted derisively. "I cannot claim to be entirely disappointed. Another week and I can reclaim my solitude."

She frowned and twisted in her chair to look at him. "What do you mean? I'm stuck here for the rest of my natural life unless I can break this curse, am I not?"

For the first time since she had met him, he actually looked confused. Comprehension dawned after a moment and he laughed without humour. "The stories do change in fifty years, I see. Your soul will be imprisoned here as an incorporeal slave for eternity, yes, but your body will become lifeless one year after stepping through the gates."

Bulma paled. "You are mocking me with untruths."

His smile was as mirthless as his laugh. "I alone here enjoy the _grand pleasure_ of eternal life, such as it is."

He did not joke. She had never heard him joke, and she knew with horrible certainty that what he said was true. Her spirit would join whatever unseen workforce made their meals and cleaned up after them.

"Well," she said in a tight voice, "I guess it is fortunate I have been working so hard on a solution." She bundled her papers against her chest (not one of them relevant to the problem at hand) and stood up with her nose in the air. "If you will excuse me."

–

Bulma sat on her bed with the key cupped in her shaking hand. It had appeared upon her dresser one morning, some months ago, and she had tried it in doors across the palace. The lock it fit led to a dark and frightening passage and she had not even entertained the idea of exploring it, shutting it tight as she had found it and returning the key to her room immediately.

Perhaps an indentured spirit had left this for her, desperate for her to break the curse. But why wait so long? Why not offer it as soon as she arrived? Perhaps it was a trick and her death lay in that grimy corridor.

At this point, her death lay wherever she stood in less than a week's time, so it seemed unimportant if she should be eaten by a grue before then. With a shaky but determined breath, Bulma stood and checked her reflection in a silver plate before leaving the room.

There were no mirrors in the palace, only gilt frames with the glass smashed out and canvas covering the empty space, but there was no shortage of portraiture. Bulma wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps he saw something other than his own face when he looked at his reflection.

She past him in the corridor on her way to the small door and he looked at the gold key in her hand. She clutched it tighter, afraid he might take it away, but he continued on in his usual silent, aloof manner.

The passage behind the small door was as dark and forbidding as Bulma remembered it. She lit the candle she had brought and found herself with her nose almost touching a smooth expanse of mirrored glass. It reflected flat black behind her and Bulma turned to check the door was still wide open. Light from the corridor pooled in at the opening, but the mirror reflected none of it. Looking back at the door from this angle she could see, above it, a plaque. It looked smooth but when she ran her fingers over it Bulma detected the faint remnants of an old inscription.

She smoothed her bodice with nervous hands. The mirror was mounted on a column, which split the passage in two, but it rejoined in a damp staircase which she descended to a narrow, rocky-walled corridor. Mirrors of various sizes lined the craggy walls and Bulma wondered if he had moved these here himself.

There were doors here, too, but most she tried rattled stubbornly in the frames and refused to open. One door, unremarkable among the others, yielded and she found herself in what seemed to be a library. Most of the scrolls and bound books Bulma ran her hands over seemed to be damaged by the damp. A cluttered desk seemed to shrink beneath an enormous family portrait. It looked more recent than the others did, to Bulma. The second prince (whose existence was never mentioned in the stories and had been completely unknown to her until she had arrived here and seen the portraits) looked as adult as the older in this one. In most he looked much more childish, but this made her rethink earlier estimates of the age difference. They looked almost like a twin set here; two small, slight boys with fine, sharp features and fierce eyes. The year engraved on the frame told Bulma the surviving prince could not be, physically, more than a year older than this portrait, but he looked very different now.

She placed her candlestick upon the desk and rifled aimlessly through some of the papers. Above her, the matching princes watched critically. A draught brushed across the desk, sending a few papers to the stone floor. Bulma's head darted up to watch the door, but there was no trace of movement. She snatched up the fallen papers and scanned them quickly. It was an old notice; a draft of notices that would have been sent out across the kingdom to announce the betrothal of the younger prince to a woman with a foreign-sounding name.

Bulma folded up the old paper carefully and collected her candle. She did not want to be down here any longer than necessary and was beginning to grow cold. She propped the door open with a book already damaged beyond repair and returned to the warm light of the palace.

–

"Was your brother married?" she asked him over dinner.

He looked up sharply. "No."

She hesitated for a moment, then unfolded her prize on the table. "Only I found this today."

He took it and read it. "He died before the wedding. Before this."

Bulma bit her lip. "I'm sorry."

"Where did you get this?"

She looked away. "I … just around."

His attention returned to his meal and hers to him. She wondered how many of the five hundred intervening years it had taken for that delicate boy to become this harsh, angular man, and she wondered if he would have become the same in time without the curse.

–

She went back the next day but the little library door had slid shut and was stuck in place. Bulma moved further down the corridor then went upwards at a fork in the road until she came to a room which smelt of soil and flowers. It was a round room and weak sunlight filtered down into the middle, where greenery flourished untended in the soft earth. She stood beneath the light and looked up. There were no flowers growing in the room so she guessed the smell came from above, and this skylight was what she had thought was an old well in the gardens.

Upon further examination it became clear that this was a crypt. The walls were decorated with plaques describing dates of birth and death. Bulma located the younger prince's plaque and was surprised both at how old he was when he died – twenty-four – and how close he was in age to his brother. They had been born in the same year, although she knew they weren't twins. She had asked.

The king and queen both had plaques describing deaths roughly one year after their son's. The stories, unreliable though they were, always said the king and queen were presiding when the curse was laid, which would mean they had suffered from this one year time limit just as Bulma would. She wondered why the prince still did not style himself king. Perhaps the spirit of his father was still bound in service.

Bulma looked at many more crypts before returning to the prince's immediate family and realising what had been bothering her. The younger prince had died exactly one year, to the day, before his parents. If the living prince was being honest about the nature of the curse, that meant the young prince died the very day it was laid. She felt cold again and moved back to the hall.

The mirrors seemed strange now. In the corner of her eye Bulma thought she saw a portrait unfamiliar to her, of a pale, round-faced girl in a purple dress. When she turned, she saw only another mirror and wondered how she could mistake her own sensible features and vibrant colouring for a mousy, doughy teen dressed in long-outdated fashions.

Perhaps she was balancing now on the edge of madness.

–

She sat next to him at lunch, as was their habit, and asked him "did you know Gure?" He didn't answer and she prompted him "your brother's betrothed?"

"I met her", he said.

"What did she look like?"

"Why should it matter to you? No doubt she is long dead."

"Was she very young? With fair hair and small eyes, a round face?"

He chewed very slowly before swallowing and answering. "There are no pictures of her. One struggles to remember any face after so many lifetimes."

"But does that sound like how you recall her?"

"Not at all."

–

There were parts of the enormous building which he forbade her from entering but relied upon her fear of him to keep her honest.

The wing which contained his bedroom, along with those of his parents and brother, was among these, but she found herself there in the afternoon. If he killed her it was no more than was coming, and when she thought upon it she realised she no longer believed he would kill her and had not believed so for many months. She did not even believe he would intentionally hurt her.

Still, her hand trembled a little as she turned the exquisitely carved handle and entered the younger prince's former quarters.

This place was more a home than most of the building. The other rooms – although she had not seen her prince's bedroom – were scrubbed so clean as to be clinical, but this looked as though the owner had merely stepped out and might be back any moment. She closed the door behind her. This was the exterior room, furnished with a lounging suite, breakfast table and a finely-carved secretary. Bulma could see the sleeping chamber through an open doorway, and knew a further closed one must be a bathroom. The room felt so occupied that the idea of entering the bedchamber seemed unsavoury.

Bulma folded down the secretary. There was a letter still in progress. Curiously, the ink in the pot had not dried out in all these years. It was addressed 'my Gure' and she flushed at the idea of reading another couple's romantic notes.

The letter waxed poetic about her virtues and about the difficulties of having her so class but, for a couple who wished to adhere to their morals, so far away. 'I have included some sketches of you, which I have made at the expense of more academic pursuits, I am afraid' and he _had_ included them. They were the mediocre sketches of an artist well trained in technical aspects but labouring without talent, but they were clearly not of the reflection Bulma had seen underground. The prince drew a dramatic, beautiful face with arching brows and flowing dark hair.

She left the desk and wandered the room idly, although now that her train of thought regarding Gure had been derailed it hardly seemed worthwhile. At the little table the remnants of a last breakfast were still warm. When Bulma sat at the table a noise like sobbing sounded from the bedroom and she made her way slowly into the interior chamber.

It was uninhabited, and silent, as was the bathroom.

She left in a hurry, without waiting to listen for the prince, and bumped into him as she left.

"I told you this place was forbidden."

She readied herself for the yelling and the property damage, but he just looked tired.

"Gure did not look as I thought. I saw your brother's drawings. She was very beautiful, with dark hair and eyes."

"That is not as I recall her, either. Why did you think she was round and fair?"

"I saw a picture somewhere."

"A picture?"

"You said there were none. I guess I saw someone else."

"Some people wear many faces." He went into his room and she heard it lock behind him.

–

There were no pictures labelled Gure in the portrait gallery, which Bulma thought was unusual for a princess-to-be. She thought to explore further underground but it was too cold. She took a mirror up to her room and tried not to think how many days she had been here. In between fits of determination she felt tired and resigned to her death.

The mirror she hung in the bathroom. The prince did not come up here very often but her chambers were one room with a bathroom; she didn't have a separate reception and it would not be the first time he had stood in the threshold to her room. Until she hung it Bulma didn't even realise she was hiding the mirror for fear of distressing him, and not for fear of his anger.

She admired herself in the mirror then slipped into a bath. The warmth re-invigorated her. She slept for a while with her head resting on the rim of the tub and when she woke, slid her whole self beneath the water. It was still warm, somehow. When she emerged hair and water obscured her view and that round face watched her from the mirror, as naked as Bulma herself. She looked heavyset. Bulma pushed the hair from her eyes and the face turned back into her own. The blue-haired young woman rose from the tub and watched from the corner of her eyes as the round-faced girl re-appeared and mimicked her.

Not heavy, Bulma realised, but in the early stages of a pregnancy. Enough to look thick-waisted while undressed, but not enough to show in the heavy brocade dress she had been wearing in the mirror underground.

"Who are you?" Bulma asked, still looking sidewards at the mirror. The mirror face's lips moved with her own, but there was no answer. Bulma pressed her lips together. "If you are a spirit who can help me, please, I need to know how to break the curse. Did you give me the key?"

Silence. She turned the mirror to face the wall and went to bed wet.

–

"Who did my room belong to before?"

He didn't answer.

"When I arrived you had a different room ready, but because I am female you put me in this other room. Whose was it?"

"It was a guest room for women."

"For women like Gure? What was Gure like?"

"I told you I do not remember what she looked like."

"I mean, who was she? Where was she from? What did she like to do? Did she die or was she cursed, too? I know she was staying here."

"She was from the north. Of noble birth, but I believe she dabbled in witchcraft."

Many women of leisure dipped a hand in the magical arts, but the way he looked at her made Bulma think this was important.

"Why were you cursed? All the stories say the whole family was cursed but it was you. Why would an evil witch want to curse just you, if your father was still king?"

"Perhaps you will be able to ask her when you join the pool of chained spirits in a few days."

She threw down her fork and stormed from the dining room.

–

One of the doors underground was open.

She walked through and her single candle lit up the whole room. The walls, floors, ceiling were covered in mirrored glass. When she shut the door behind her the back of it, too, was mirror.

"A scrying room", she mumbled to herself, and walked the walls trailing fingers across the mirrors. They left visible trails in the dust. The spirits must not attend this room unless specifically called. Bulma was no expert on scrying but in a place so full of spirits it must be a simple thing to call them. She lifted herself onto the table and placed the candlestick on her lap.

"Hello?" she said, but nothing happened. She waited, and thought, and after a time she saw a figure in the glass. She spoke to it, but it did not respond and as scenery coalesced around it and another figure entered she realised she was an observer here, not a participant.

They were arguing, and as the rough brush strokes refined Bulma realised they were the princes, before the younger one had died and the older one had built himself up carrying whatever load was on the now-broad shoulders.

She couldn't understand what they were saying but both were shouting, and then it became physical. A third figure joined them on what now seemed to be a balcony, but she was unclear. One minute she was the round-faced mirror girl, then a tall, slim girl with the dark features of those secret drawings, and then a busty redhead with clear, bright eyes. She pulled at the fighting men and then Bulma's prince hit her and she fell down, crying, and the younger man went into a frenzy, screaming and beating at his brother's chest. Even back then the older boy had been the stronger, and he pushed his brother back.

But the girl was back on her feet, with a black eye forming on each of her shifting faces, and the taller boy turned to hold her by the wrists and shout at her while the other tugged at his clothes and threw useless punches towards his abdomen. The older prince kept stepping backwards and the girl got a kick in where it counted. He dropped to his knees and Bulma worried about him for a moment. He surged to his feet just as the other man moved over him and the young prince was knocked backwards, bent over the balcony railing. He reversed, then the younger boy said something and, his face contorted with rage, the stronger brother moved forward again and struck him viciously across the face.

The smaller man tumbled over the railing and was gone. Bulma's hand fluttered over her mouth.

The girl in the scene howled and attempted to climb over the railing. The prince pulled her back and she began thrashing at him and crying while he looked out over the edge of the balcony.

Then they were both gone and Bulma was left staring at her own reflection. She realised she had been crying and wiped at her face crossly.

–

"How did your brother die?"

She was standing in the doorway of the main library and he was sitting at the fireplace. He didn't answer her, as usual.

"It's just … I saw something and … it's something I would like to not be true."

"Then it is probably the truth."

"Did you kill your brother?"

"One does not become cursed as a result of virtue."

"I think this is a bit beyond a discussion of _virtue_." She moved towards the fireplace, where she could see his face.

"_Virtue_ is particularly relevant."

She sat down in the ornate chair opposite his and watched the fire. "Do you remember Gure with bright red hair and purple eyes?"

His jaw unclenched slightly. "Yes."

"She was a witch, then. She was using a glamour. Different things to different people."

He nodded.

"He was going to be a father and you killed him."

His eyes widened slightly and his voice sounded genuinely surprised. "I sincerely doubt that."

"He was. I saw her."

The prince shook his head again and she frowned, something niggling at her. His letter. Why would he write a love letter as though he were waiting chastely for their wedding night if she was pregnant? He couldn't expect anybody to be reading it.

"I saw her," she said again, less certain, "and she was pregnant."

"That does not necessarily mean my brother was the father."

"That's what you were fighting about, then! You were trying to warn him about her and he wouldn't listen. It was an accident."

"I won't claim to be more virtuous than I am."

"You weren't warning him?"

"What did you find?"

She hesitated. "A spirit left me a key. I've been exploring underground and I found a scrying room."

"A spirit?" his mouth tilted into an amused smirk. "How kind of it."

"Yes."

"Although perhaps your kindly spirit is disappointed you did not take up exploring with more time to save yourself."

"Oh." She watched him watching the fire. "If I broke the curse I would save myself, but I would also save you. What right have I, really, to subvert the justice that has been done to you? Why should I?"

"I won't tell you I have changed, become a kind and gentle man. Perhaps you should think of saving those who will come after you, one every fifty years."

"I don't think you are in any position to give me moral guidance."

"You don't even know what happened", he snapped, suddenly savage, then settled back into his chair.

"I don't even know how I would break the curse, so it's irrelevant."

"I should imagine you must contract with the spirit of she who placed the curse."

"So it was Gure? She cursed you for telling on her, or for killing her betrothed?"

"Flimsy reasons for such elaborate vengeance", he sneered.

"Love is not a flimsy reason."

"If she had 'loved' him she would not be pregnant with another man's child."

"Maybe she was forced into bed with a man?"

"She certainly was not. If she desired only to be with my brother then she would not be using a glamour designed to target other men as well."

"You are a callous man."

"Has anyone claimed otherwise?"

–

She went underground at night, though the cold there bit through even her fur cloak. The scrying room was closed to her once more and the mirrors refused to reflect even Bulma's own face, let alone the one she needed to talk with.

"Gure," she called into the darkness, "Gure I understand you cursed him as punishment for killing his brother, but why the whole castle?" The mirrors remained blank.

Bulma had asked the prince, once, what he saw in a mirror. He replied "only what has always been there" and she called him a liar. This was only a month ago. Had she been so bold at the beginning of her stay here she would not have lived to see out her entire year.

"If you loved the young prince why not place a charm on him, rather than cast a glamour which could affect other men?"

By now she had wandered to the fork in the passage. Up, to her left, lay the path to the crypt, strangely warm in comparison to this corridor. To the right, it narrowed further and sloped downward. The light from her candle seemed to be swallowed by black less than an arm's length from her face. The strange underground breeze at her back urged her down and Bulma did not fight it.

The candle went out but she felt calm. If she died down here she could know he would not bury her. He would not find her. Perhaps he would think she had escaped this place and she hoped that thought would sting him. She suspected it would.

The path terminated at a door, which she could not see but knew was there, and when her fingers touched the wood it swung open to reveal a room illuminated. It was a study, with a well-used desk and shelves lined with bottles, jars and boxes of magical reagents. Some Bulma recognised from her own work, others as substances long ago outlawed or proven ineffective, and some were unfamiliar to her.

An ink sketch sat in a little frame on the desk. It was Gure, in the round-faced form Bulma assumed was her natural appearance, holding an infant. Bulma turned the frame over in her hand and removed the drawing. At the bottom of the paper, where it would be hidden by the frame, a date of birth was given for the child. It was born some months after the curse was laid.

Bulma looked through papers detailing experimental spells and a journal in which was stored many letters similar to the one Bulma had found in the young prince's desk. At the bottom of the drawer lay a bundle of letters of a different nature, in a different tongue. Bulma was still growing accustomed to the archaic handwriting used here in everything from the books to the prince's own writing, and it took her a while to realise these letters were written in a language she understood, although the phrasing seemed to her clumsy, probably due to their historical nature.

They were letters to Gure from her circle, which surprised Bulma as most noble women who dabbled in magic were neither committed enough nor skilled enough to make a pact with a circle. But the more Bulma read of both these letters and the pencil drafts – riddled with spelling errors and crossed out words – Gure had made of her replies, the more it became clearer that she was no noble. On the contrary, it seemed as though she had been a 'circle daughter', which Bulma understood to mean a child born to a witch and raised by the circle, without the father ever knowing of his child's birth.

'Sisters and mothers,' one letter began, 'I have been here for a fortnight and my guise as a noblewoman holds. I have met both princes and humbly suggest that the elder brother may be unsuitable for our purposes. I fear that a child sired by him could grow to be as cruel as the prince himself, and I focus my attention now upon the younger brother.'

'Sisters and mothers,' started another, followed by a large number of sentences scribbled out, then picking up again with 'I understand your concerns about the length of time spent away from the circle but it is with great certainty that I inform you that if the circle desires this child to be of the royal family, the wait to procure a daughter from the younger brother will be well worthwhile. It may be that I must proceed with the wedding, but I shall return immediately I am with child.'

'Sisters and mothers, I have followed your instructions and shall return promptly.' But she must not have, for here was her picture with the infant and here a pile of letters, each one opened and presumably read, all dated after this last letter.

Bulma looked at the little drawing and she supposed that baby must, then, be the child of _her_ prince and she wondered what Gure had expected of the two men after they found out what was happening. She wondered why the witch had stayed on long enough to let them find out.

Next to her, the candle flickered back to life on the desk, though it offered no improvement on vision in this room, already well-lit from unknown sources. The crackling sounds of the candle sounded like a voice.

_He is a cruel man_, the candle seemed to say, _and deserves no better than he has received_.

"You tricked them both", Bulma told the candle in an uncertain voice, then felt silly for talking to a candle.

_I was born in the circle_. I had never met a man before I came here. The flame flickered low and nearly extinguished. _I had only one task to perform here and no idea how it was to be done. You think I had the wiles to trick them_?

_I loved him,_ crackled the candle and the jars on the shelves rattled in time with its almost-voice.

"If you loved the younger prince you would not have gone to bed with his brother."

_I did as I was told_! The flame roared large for a moment, melting away inches of candle. A jar fell to the floor and smashed, spilling preserving fluid and shrivelled lizards across the flagstones. _Once I was with child the glamour would slowly fade. The mothers and sisters who cast it would lose some hold over my will and my prince would learn to see me as I am. I could have convinced him the child was his; it would not born until after the wedding and the brothers looked alike. We could have been happy. We were going to be happy._

"Why did you stay? After the curse was cast you must have stayed, if your spirit lingers now. Why not take your child back to the circle? Did you curse yourself and your infant?"

_We were not cursed, except in that the child was born a _boy_._ If a candle could sound disgusted, it was doing so. _We died here._ There was a pause. _The boy could only have been as bad as his father_. Gas escaped a glass bottle with a mournful hiss.

"He has not been cruel to me."

_But you will not claim he is a man without temper, or that he possesses in himself strong moral conviction. If he is kind to you he is still a man who murdered his own brother and has spent his life treating those less powerful with contempt. Even if this curse could teach him regret, it could not take back any of what he has done, and it could never change the base, violent animal at the core of his soul._

"If nothing is achieved through your spell, then why weave it? Why not just kill him back then?"

_Because I want him to _suffer_. I suffered. You cannot understand. It is not the loss which hurt me. It was the moment before he died, when he thought I did not love him and he was in pain. Have you ever loved, girl?_

"No."

_If you had loved you would know just how it hurts to see the one you care about in pain._

Bulma watched the candle silently for a few minutes. "Perhaps he loved his brother. Perhaps he thought he was saving him pain by warning him about you before the wedding could go ahead."

_You do not believe that._

"No." The flame crackled with self-satisfaction. "Did you kill yourself and your son?" The flame dwindled to almost nothing. "So who are you to cast judgement on him? End this foolish curse."

You may go, girl. Nothing remains to hold you here. I wish you better luck in love than I enjoyed.

The candle blinked out and Bulma's heart leapt in her chest. After a moment of disbelief she fled the study and stumbled blindly through the hallway and back into the palace. It, too, was dim tonight and she tripped twice on her way back to her room. Her bag she packed in the dark, then thundered down the stairs and into the entrance hall, but was surprised by a sliver of light visible where a door was ajar. All the lights should be out.

The door creaked as it opened. She could see him sitting in his chair, watching the fire.

"You are leaving", he said, without turning around.

"Yes," she rasped, "Gure released me."

He didn't answer for a long time, and she left. She left the palace, then she left the grounds, and she began the long walk home.

–

Three days later, when she came back, he was still sitting there, watching the coals.

"I came back", she said, placing her bag down next to her chair.

"I see that."

She sat down.

"You were free."

"I suppose I have more to think about than just myself." She touched his shoulder and he pulled away. "Are you all right?"

"I am no different from usual."

"You left that key for me, didn't you? It wasn't Gure at all."

He snorted.

"Did you think I would be able to bargain for you? I am sorry I failed, in that case."

"No. As I suspected, she favours young women."

"So why not give me the key straight away?"

"Your death seemed unimportant, then."

"But it seems important now?"

"You flatter yourself."

"You should get something to eat. You look starving."

"I do not, technically, need sustenance to live."

Bulma wondered if this was how he spent all the years between company, but she had more pressing concerns right now than his failure to care for himself. She left her bag with him and returned underground, ignoring the frigid wind that attempted to push her back.

_What are you doing here?_ hissed the wind, and Gure's face grimaced at her from the multitude mirrors. _You have been freed. Leave this place._

"I was sent here, like many before me, to break the curse on our royal family. If I leave I have not only failed at the task I was given, but I have knowingly sent all those who will attempt it in the future to their deaths. And ..." her voice grew soft. "And I do not believe he deserves what you have done to him."

_He is a monster! I have only shown him what he is, and given him an eternity to contemplate it._

"He was a selfish, arrogant boy but you are as much a monster as he. What is there for you to gain by staying here instead of allowing yourself to forget? You hurt yourself as much as him."

_You care for him_ the wind sighed, and the face in the mirrors was sad._ Do you love him?_

"No", Bulma said automatically. "Perhaps. It's hardly relevant." She clutched nervously at her skirts. "What happened took place many lifetimes ago and you never had the right to take anybody's humanity from them."

_He never had it_, replied the wind, and this time Gure's mirror-mouths moved in time with the sound.

"I have always been taught that one's actions will have consequences in life. He would have suffered without your intervention."

_Not enough_, was the reply.

Bulma took a deep breath and made her bluff. "Is your prince's soul at peace because of what you have done? Or did he care for his family as much as any lover?"

The wind cut around her ankles wordlessly.

"You did this thing for love, I know, but you have done as much to harm your prince's spirit as his brother ever did to his earthly form."

"I was afraid of him," whispered Gure, but the voice came from the mirrors now and the wind was gone. "I never expected for him to realise I was under a glamour, or that I was pregnant and my prince could not be the father."

Her voice cracked. "I thought he would hurt me, hurt my child." The image faded from all but one mirror and Gure's eyes turned downcast. "When I birthed a son I thought my mothers and sisters had cursed me, in turn. In the circle, there are no male children born."

Bulma opened her mouth to correct the girl, but decided against interrupting the spirit. She knew that most circles maintained a policy of culling boys at birth, but Gure obviously did not.

"I waited here. I could not go home. Once the castle's population was dead, once he knew fully what I had done to him, I killed my son and myself. I was afraid of him. He has been good to you but most were afraid of him, then. I gave force only to what many would wish."

"You did too much," Bulma said gently. "You hurt too many."

"Do you think his mildness with you, your affection for him, outweighs all the wrong he has done?"

"Do you think his sins in youth outweigh the centuries of punishment, and the need his people have for a leader? Do you think the capture of all these souls is a lesser indiscretion than a death in the heat of a fight? The prince is a deeply flawed man, but he has never been the monster you are."

"Get out of here!" Gure shouted. "You do not belong here, I have released you! All I want is for you to leave. Why did you ever come down here? I wish to be alone. Forever alone. I have so much to think on."

"I cannot leave while so many remain trapped."

"Then take your souls!" There was no howling or gushing wind, but Bulma knew with sudden certainty that the trapped souls were gone. The air felt thinner and the distant sound of unending rain faded. "Take your prince, too," Gure snarled. "I will be alone here and he can flounder in a world much changed in his absence. I want nothing but solitude. Leave, before I change my mind and take your freedom from you, as I have him."

Bulma did not need to be told twice. She was up the stairs and out into the strangely vacant-seeming palace without waiting to hear more of Gure's tirade. Behind her, mirrors cracked and fell from their frames.

He was still sitting before the fire and when she came in he turned to her. "What did you do?" he asked, "something had changed."

"We are leaving", she told him breathlessly, and picked up her case. When he didn't move she tugged at his arm. "I think we have not much time, and that this place will crumble around us." Gure had killed herself before and Bulma did not think she would hesitate to destroy herself, and the building around her, now.

"I cannot leave," he told her, but followed as she left the building and made to the gates. "I have often tried."

She broke into a run as she gates drew close, and worked the lock as he caught up. He walked slowly. He did everything slowly, precisely, as though he had all the time in the world. She smiled to herself and reflected that he would need to re-adjust to the pace of real life.

The gate opened and she stepped through, then turned back and held out her hand. "The people will be pleased to have a king again," she told him. He stepped up to the threshold and looked down at the ground suspiciously, then back up to her.

"It is time to rejoin the living, Vegeta."

He took the offered hand and stepped through the gates.

Will get around to reading this through myself soon. If it is really very terrible I may end up taking it down so, uh, enjoy it while it's here I guess.


End file.
